To John Key, Nick Smith, David Carter from Marlborough Fed Farmers 17 November 2009

Vote No at Copenhagen

 Marlborough Federated Farmers  requests that the Government does not commit NZ to any agreement at all on climate change at Copenhagen.
 
There are good reasons for taking the time that is required to ascertain the necessity and validity of these proposals, not least of which being  the requirement to get the support of the NZ electorate.
 

Secondly, we know that the single aggregate measure of climate gases (GWP ) adopted by the IPCC, has been admitted to be  flawed.The IPCC Norway meeting confirmed this.
A change in this metric could reduce the measurement of New Zealand farm emissions by up to 85%.The benefit of this to all of NZ- not only farmers- is clear.
  
It would be clearly wrong to ratify or implement anything until this issue is addressed.
 
Thirdly, applying subsidies to agriculture through New Zealand’s ETS could destroy most of the hard earned gains made in recent trade negotiations and could result in a further wave of protectionism. The US has included tarriffs in its proposed legislation.
  
The growing adverse reaction from the rest of NZ about the climate change farm subsidies is noted by us.This is a social division NZ cannot afford.
                              We have written to you previously and have submitted to the Finance and Expenditure committee. These documents are available to you so we will not go over old ground                                                                                                                          
                               
                             We reiterate that there is absolutely no valid reason to include agriculture in either the ETS or these negotiations and it will be detrimental to all New Zealand to proceed down that path,
                             
                               Yours Sincerely,
 
 
                                Geoff Evans,
                                President,
                                Marlborough Federated Farmers.
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